In the past two weeks, the crèche upgrade project has kicked into high gear. Many times recently, we’ve been providing physical upgrades involving construction to improve impoverished crèches at the same time someone else in our missionary team is teaching the preschool children simultaneously. This benefits the crèche physically in terms of a better environment for the children to use every day plus it gives them a strong boost in terms of education level and inclusion of basic bible teaching.
Our work of late has all been in the township of Tembisa, the location of the new Christadelphian community center/crèche/ecclesial hall that is undergoing renovations to prepare it for use in early March. All of our activity has helped promote interest in our own crèche, even before it is ready for launch.
This type of our missionary work falls under what we’ve dubbed the C.U.D.D.L.E. project (Crèche Upgrades, Diligently Developing Little ones’ Education). There are over 300 crèches in Tembisa, a township of about half a million people. We try to seek out and select especially-dire hardship cases where the crèche directors are providing an honest effort and doing noble work, just need an extra boost we can provide them with to improve their difficult teaching conditions.
Megan teaching the children this morning at Mama’s Daycare about Ants and the letter A in the alphabet. Also, incorporating bible concepts concerning the Ant: hardworking, doesn’t need to be told what to do, etc.
Bro. Mat Collard from England and I prepping the walls at the Kgatliso Creche for painting.
From left: Bro. Hendri Viljoen, Bro. Mat Collard, and I moving back some shelving after painting the preschool area at the Kgatliso Creche in Tembisa.
ONE EXAMPLE OF A CRECHE WE WORK WITH:
Molly is a sweetheart of a lady who runs her own crèche called Thato Day Care Center, named after her youngest son. Her husband cheated on her and left her, so she is raising her 3 children on her own and doing a fantastic job of bringing them up to be mature young people in the middle of a lot of poverty and chaos going on around her. Like many crèches in Tembisa, Molly is using a shack in her backyard for her preschool and sole source of income. Molly only has 9-10 students, a fairly small crèche, compared to most that have 30-50. Sadly, even her small enrollment was shrinking due to the fact that many parents were concerned about leaving their children there because her crèche building’s roof leaked and water spilled in during South Africa’s frequent afternoon thunderstorms.
After assessing her needs, our team stepped in to provide complete physical upgrades to her property: repainting playground equipment, making a sign for the front of the property to promote her business (she had none before), building shelving for teaching supplies in her building, and, most importantly, removing her old, leaky tarp roof (yes, the roof was simply a tarp over some plywood) and installing a proper, watertight metal roof.
Molly was so appreciative of all of the work we did for her, she cooked us a nice dinner last Saturday evening at her home. All of our volunteers went into Tembisa that night (something only a handful of white people in history have done since Apartheid ended). She got a kick out of serving us tripe for an appetizer. Tripe is sheep intestines, a staple diet of impoverished Africans because it is so inexpensive to buy. I felt like a contestant on “Survivor” trying some. It actually tasted alright, since she seasoned it well, but the thought was less than pleasant. Thankfully, the rest of her meal was much more enjoyable to eat and we had a great time with everyone in her front yard on a beautiful South African evening.
After assessing her needs, our team stepped in to provide complete physical upgrades to her property: repainting playground equipment, making a sign for the front of the property to promote her business (she had none before), building shelving for teaching supplies in her building, and, most importantly, removing her old, leaky tarp roof (yes, the roof was simply a tarp over some plywood) and installing a proper, watertight metal roof.
Molly was so appreciative of all of the work we did for her, she cooked us a nice dinner last Saturday evening at her home. All of our volunteers went into Tembisa that night (something only a handful of white people in history have done since Apartheid ended). She got a kick out of serving us tripe for an appetizer. Tripe is sheep intestines, a staple diet of impoverished Africans because it is so inexpensive to buy. I felt like a contestant on “Survivor” trying some. It actually tasted alright, since she seasoned it well, but the thought was less than pleasant. Thankfully, the rest of her meal was much more enjoyable to eat and we had a great time with everyone in her front yard on a beautiful South African evening.
On the right, Molly is the owner of Thato Day Care Center in Tembisa, a crèche we’ve been working with often lately.
In the center, a little girl named Molly is telling us about her hippo sticker she just received as part of her Noah’s Ark lesson.
Megan setting up an impromptu classroom outside while building renovations are going on inside the crèche.
I’m cutting the rounded shelves while Hendri and Mat are nailing together the shelf base that will go inside the crèche.
Bro. Mat Collard from England installing our finished shelves that will hold teaching supplies in Molly’s crèche.
Playground equipment BEFORE painting.
From left: Lebo, Molly, and Megan painting the playground equipment at Thato Daycare Center.
Playground equipment AFTER painting, just like new!
Sis. Laura Iredale painting a sign for the front of the Thato Day Care Center. Previously, there wasn’t one and business was just word of mouth only.
Lebo’s son Kamo showing me a picture he took of me on his mom’s cell phone.
Removing the old, leaky tarp-and-plywood roof.
Within half an hour, the old roof was removed. The poor construction helped the demolition process go very quickly.
Walking back and forth across the center exposed wood beam was like playing walk-the-tightrope as a kid. Thankfully, no one fell.
Purchasing lumber at a local builders’ supply store in Kempton Park and strapping it to the bakkie roof for the ride into Tembisa.
Hendri enjoying his spot of tea with overly-extended pinky finger and all. Megan enjoys the English influence on the culture here in that tea time is held every day mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Granted, we seldom stop and have tea ourselves, but it is interesting to see a tea set come out and be served in the middle of an African township at tea time.
Getting good and dirty working on the new roof construction.
The old, leaky tarp-over-plywood roof.
The new proper metal roof that is watertight, finished just in time for an evening rainstorm.
The Kempton Park missionary group with Molly and her sister Lebo and their sons.
Molly is a wonderful host and served us lunch when we were there all day working. The plate consists of pup (the white stuff), mince (the meat), and beans. It was quite tasty and very filling, a staple diet of impoverished South Africans since everything is very inexpensive to purchase at the grocery store.
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